"OLVIA-PRESS"

IN THE DMR SUPREME COUNCIL.

At the 1^st sitting of the Supreme Council 4^th Session, which took place on September 4^th, the Parliament's Speaker Grigory Marakutsa celebrated his colleagues with the holiday, which had taken place on September 2^nd, - the Day of Republic and wished good working mood to them. The Session agenda was saturated. That day, the deputies considered over 20 questions.

When considering the bill "On amendments and adding to the republican budget", the deputy minister of healthcare and social protection Svetlana Fedotova remarked that in the republic there live over 800 citizens: victims of political repressions. The law "On rehabilitation of victims of political repressions" provided a number of privileges, including payments for facilities, prosthesis of teeth, and free public transport. By words of Svetlana Fedotova, "this law has been stopped since April 1^st 2002, but the state has not cancelled these privileges". The mechanism of address subsidies, which has been carried out on the basis of the law "On state benefits", is still provided only for poor families and those with many children, if their overall income is les than 50% of the living minimum. That's why, the DMR ministry of healthcare and social protection finds necessary to amend the law "On the republican budget" and to raise funds additionally in amount of 27.5 rubles (about $4 thousand) for partial satisfaction of their needs.

In the adopted regulation the legislators decided to raise necessary means for this category of citizens.

Answering the question of the deputies about filling up the Pension's Fund, Svetlana Fedotova remarked that because of the economic and custom blockade committed by Moldova, since autumn 2001, money has been coming to the Pension's Fund quite irregularly and in insufficient amount. Monthly the Pension's Fund is about 18-21 million rubles ($3-3.5 million) short, and this issue "needs to be urgently settled".

By words of the Parliament’s vice-speaker Yevghehi Shevchuk, from year to year the problem of money income to the budget and Pension’s Fund becomes more and more complicated. The main problem is that by data of the statistic department, the number of people employed in our republic does not exceed 140 thousand. About half of them are budget-sphere benefactors and agriculture employees. 150 thousand of working-able people have ‘fallen out’ of the taxation space and ‘it is unclear where they are’. It means that a little over 70 thousand people pay taxes, thus creating material goods. Meanwhile the republic has about 200 thousand children and 130 thousand pensioners. Every year, the number of pensioners grows. Of course, such a little number of ‘producers’ are not able to provide fully the budget-sphere benefactors and pensioners with financial means in sufficient amount. Figuratively speaking, one worker feeds seven people. Yevgheni Shevchuk concluded, “It is a big and complicated economic problem demanding detailed and thorough elaboration”.

When considering the bill “On amendments and adding to the law ‘On minimal size of the wage’, the deputies discussed the issue of increasing salaries of the budget-sphere benefactors”. The ministry of economy offered to establish the minimal wage size in amount of 120 rubles. By words of Yevgheny Shevchuk, establishment the minimal wage size is a state guarantee that our citizens would be able to meet their minimal demands for their labor. But at the same time, the situation when, for example, a junior nurse at a hospital earns 120 rubles, whereas the chief of a department – for 40 rubles more, is abnormal. He also emphasized that increase of the wage of highly qualified specialists “is impossible to provide only on the basis of one law ‘On minimal increase of the wage’. Real money is needed for its provision. There are few variants, one of which is to reduce the governmental staff for 40%. And generally, the Budget department should present ‘the spectrum of figures and economic outlines’ to the session for discussion in order to resolve this problem, and take “a comprehensively correct decision”. As result, the given bill was rejected.

Giving an interview to correspondent of the press agency “Olvia-press”, the DMR minister of economy Elena Chernenko remarked, “The ministry of economy worries about disorder in the system of payments for the budget-sphere benefactors”. The ‘ladder’ of wages payment – from the low-qualified benefactors till the director – should be strictly built up in correspondence with categories. On basis of the built-up system of wages increase, beginning with the next year, it should be increased for 2.5 times. That is, the lowest salary should differ from the highest for 2.5 times. At the same time, this problem will not be resolved without increase of budget incomes. But in opinion of the minister, there are bases for positive resolution of that problem.

In the first reading, there was the adopted the bill “On amendments and changes” to the law ‘On the DMR road funds’, adopted in May 2002. As author of the given bill, the minister of economy Elena Chernenko remarked that the law ‘On road funds’ provides taxes for transit of ecologically dangerous means of transport, substances, and cargoes. At the same time, similar road tariffs are also provided in the annex #7 to the law “On payments for pollution of environment and for use of natural resources”. It means that transport possessors pay two taxes at once: one for the Road Fund, another one for the ministry of ecology and natural resources. That’s why, as the minister underlined, in order to avoid double taxation, it is reasonable to exclude the article providing road fees for transit of ecologically harmful transport, substances, and cargoes from the article “On road funds”. Moreover that realization of this bill does not need carrying out any normative acts, additional materials or other costs.

Elena Chernenko also presented the bill “On amendments and changes to the DMR law ‘On income tax from private persons’”, which was adopted in the first reading. It is worth mentioning that the law adopted in late 2001 radically changed the approach to the system of taxation of private persons. The former scale of progressive tax was changed into the 15% tax rate. According to adopted amendments and changes, in favor of tax-payers, there are provided different deductions from that rate, depending on category and marital status. On the one hand, the taxed income is reduced and is connected with costs for education of children, treatment of one of spouses in the republic or abroad, acquisition of medicines by doctor’s prescription, etc. On the other hand, address assistance is given namely to those who need it. Deductions for lonely parents are doubled.

Costs for treatment, medical examination outside the DMR are deducted only in case of available direction to treatment from the respective medical institution of the republic.

At next sittings of the session, the deputies will be working with tax-forming bills and normative acts, so that the republican budget for the next year would be adopted by the new year. Besides, by words of the Supreme Council Chairman Grigory Marakutsa, the deputies will keep on working with simplification of the tax system for different categories of people, so that they could have unimpeded business and possibility of creating their enterprises. It is important to keep them away from ‘extreme tutorial’ of controlling bodies and to ease the tax burden. By his words, the budget incomes will be increased by means of enlarging production, goods, and services. Grigory Marakutsa emphasized, “Our major objective is to make our country attractive for internal producers and foreign producers and investors”.

The second objective is to raise money in order to keep pensions in USD equivalent at the present level, to increase and provide present and future pensioners; taking into account the post-war (World war II - note of the translator) demographic situation, the number of pensioners in the republic will rise from year to year. But this problem should not be resolved by means of heavy tax burden upon enterprises. One should search other ways of resolution. It is a very serious issue, and in nearest future we will hold hearings. As far as before going for vacations, we set the Ministers’ Cabinet to prepare respective documents on economic situation in the republic.